The Nonstop Garden – and Gardener

When we begin to grow perennials most of us are happy to have a little spring tableau, and maybe a summer tableau, and maybe we’ll bring in a couple of pots of mums in the fall. As we become more experienced, and more greedy for more plants we begin to lust after a garden that is in bloom, or at least really really interesting for most of the year. This goal can seems elusive.

To help us achieve this goal experienced gardener and writer Stephanie Cohen , along with Jennifer Benner, have put together The Nonstop Garden: A Step-by-Step Guide to Smart Plant Choices and Four-Season Designs (Timber Press $19.95). Cohen and Benner make the point that a non-stop garden can “require less maintenance . . . allow more creativity and encourage diversity.”

Some of us, like me, stumble into the concept of breaking our garden down into ‘rooms’ by accident. The idea of creating a whole coherent garden plan at once can be overwhelming, and for me it has been impossible. I was glad to see Cohen and Benner talk about breaking the garden and the plan into manageable pieces. I never thought of the Lawn Beds, or the Shed Bed or the Herb Bed as ‘rooms’ but they are discrete elements and it is easier to think about having some non-stop attractions in each one than thinking about the garden as a whole.

Some of their advice is useful in the most general and practical sense.  First, put the right plant in the right spot. Shade plants will not do well in bright sun – and vice versa.  Hardiness has to be considered, but who can blame us for pushing the limits. Gardeners like to gamble as much as anyone and while losses are disappointing, they are not ruinous.

Cohen and Benner make a point that has become more and more important to me recently. Think about layering, that is, planting trees, shrubs, and flowers or groundcovers together as they would appear in a natural setting.  I did suggest shrubs to a friend who was dissatisfied with the lack of definition in her garden, but she wailed that she was ‘too young for shrubs!”

I admit to getting older every day, but trees and shrubs are not for the elderly. They can provide, color, form and texture in a garden with less work for the young, too.

Rules and general information are easy to come by, but what makes this book especially useful are the lists of plants in every category that can be used over most of the county, and ten planting schemes for a variety of needs. Do you want a garden that attracts those beautiful denizens of the air, birds and butterflies?

Have your trees grown up so that you now have a shade garden, but no shade loving plants? Conversely, has a storm taken down your trees and now you need to plan for sunny plantings. The Nonstop Garden provides ten garden designs with lists of plants that will do well in different areas or to meet different desires of the gardener.

Gardens are more than plants. Cohen and Benner recognize that vines need supports, and our senses of beauty, humor or whimsy may demand a few ornaments in the garden. One trend I have noticed as I’ve walked around the urban gardens of Buffalo, is the placing of mirrors in the garden, hung on walls, but encircled with vines or half hidden by other foliage. They reflect the light and provide a moment of surprise when you realize what that bit of brightness is.

Buffalo gnome

Of course, there are more familiar ornaments, statuary (including gnomes), pots, and fountains.

I’ve been a non-stop garden visitor as I’ve spent three days previewing some of the Buffalo Garden Walk gardens, and botanical institutions. All I ever knew about Buffalo is that it gets a lot of snow in winter, but I have learned about its other charms. It has beautiful turn of the twentieth century architecture, some of which is very grand. Frederick Law Olmstead laid out parks and parkways here.  Because of the Erie Canal and the city’s location on Lake Erie Buffalo was one of the richest, most important cities in the U.S. at the end of the nineteenth century.

It must be admitted that the city did go into a period of decline, but because of the imagination of seven gardeners 15 years ago, it is gardens and gardeners who have been a big part of its resurgence as a beautiful place to live. Over 350 gardens are on this year’s free Buffalo Garden Walk tour the weekend of July 24-25. Whole neighborhoods have been revitalized, businesses have been inspired, and the city has joined the show.  Hooray for gardeners!

Once at home I had to become a non-stop gardener.  This is a busy time in the garden. Watering the vegetable garden and all the containers is important this dry month. Why is it that weeds never seem to mind drought times?  Doesn’t seem fair.

Correction: I gave incorrect address for the Plant a Row for the Hungry website last week. For information about donating some of your extra garden produce to a food pantry logon to www.parwmass.blogspot.com. And don’t forget, Community Harvest at Ev Hatch’s field on Plain Road.  Call Mark Maloni at Community Action 413-376-1181, to sign up to help harvest on Monday, Wednesday or Friday mornings.

Between the Rows  July 17, 2010

New Friends and Their Blogs

Here is part of the crowd of 70 garden bloggers  at the Buffalo Botanical Garden. I was familiar with the blogs of some of these gardeners like Frances (lower left) of Fairegarden, and Susan (center in blue with hat) of Sustainable Gardening Blog, and Helen (in white under the camera) of Toronto Gardens.  Susan is one of the Garden Ranters; she and I worked briefly for an Australian organic gardening website Organic Gardener which made us virtual colleagues! Frances has beautifully photographed gardens in Tennesee, and Helen knows what it is like to garden in a harsh climate.

So I knew some of the garden blogs written by those who showed up for the third annual garden bloggers meet-up in Buffalo at the beginning of the month, but it is a whole other thing to actually meet and get to know those gardeners – and then read their blogs. I may not have been to their gardens (yet) but I do have a richer sense of their personalities and their tastes and passions.

I met lots of bloggers whose blogs I did not know – but I do know now. I have added several of these to my own blogroll, the list of inks to blogs in the right column.  There was a professional discussion at one point about the purpose or desirability of having a blogroll. Most of us thought they were helpful and necessary. I use my own blogroll as an easy way to visit my favorite blogs when I am putting up my post, and I use other people’s blogs as a recommendation. If I like a blog, I figure I will like their favorite blogs as well. I’ve added several new blogs to my blogroll.

I spent a day on the bus with Mary of My Northern Garden. She is the editor of Northern Garden Magazine, and freelance writer. I was interested in how Minnessota gardens differ in challenges from New England gardens. She was generous with information about gardening, and about blogging. She gave out copies of the magazine (beautiful!) which is a publication of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society.

Jean gardens in Louisiana, but her blog, Dig, Grow, Compost, Blog has useful information for all of us. Also it turns out her brother lives in the same area near Houston, Sienna Plantation, as my daughter!  Jean is also a garden coach and she gave me advice about that skill.

Cindy, one energetic lady, is   also from Texas. Her Corner of Katy is also near my daughter. When we visited we went to the immense Katy Mall and shopped. My husband got ‘cowboy shirts’ and a hat to wear in our field. I’m very interested in Texas gardens these days, but no matter where a person gardens, there is some advice that is good for all of us. Besides, our blogs are also about community and family – which are of interest to us all.

We have friends in Sacramento so I was happy to meet Leslie who is Growing a Garden in Davis.  Now I can keep an eye on what Leslie is doing –  and what my garden friends in Sacramento are likely to be doing.   I’ve added these and a few others to my blogroll, but if you’d like to check out blogs of others I met in Buffalo you can logon to the Buffa10 website which has links to them all, and links to recent posts – with great photos – about our garden tours in Buffalo. You will meet some great people.

Reluctantly leaving Mike Shadrack's hosta and daylily gardens

Local Heroes Honored

My bumper sticker

I was so pleased to get this notice from CISA, an organization I support and applaud – not to mention all the Local Heroes in the region, those noted, and those who labor devotedly without applause.  At least not so far.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) is pleased to announce that it has selected Belle Rita Novak of Springfield, J & J Farms in Amherst, and Dan Rosenberg of Real Pickles in Greenfield, to receive its prestigious Local Hero Awards for 2010.

“We applaud our 2010 Local Hero Award recipients and we honor their efforts to sustain local agriculture and enhance the unique character of their communities,” says Philip Korman, executive director of CISA. “Our Local Hero awardees are individuals who can serve as role models for all of us and can help us to create and nourish long term change.”

Background on 2010 Local Hero Awardees

BELLE RITA NOVAK (The Farmer’s Market at the X, Springfield):  As market manager of the Farmer’s Market at the X in Forest Park, a busy urban Springfield neighborhood, Belle Rita Novak’s job includes planning and promotion, writing the weekly newsletter, selling tokens to customers, as well as cooking and serving food samples.  Novak’s passion for fresh local food is no doubt key to the market’s success. “It’s a labor of love,” says Novak.  With the support of friends and help from the Department of Agriculture, Novak organized the market in the fall of 1997 opened it in June 1998 with five vendors. At the time, there were a total of ninety-eight farmers’ markets in Massachusetts; that number has since doubled to more than 200. Considered the largest urban market in western Massachusetts, the Farmer’s Market at the X attracts a diverse customer base, including many shoppers who pay with their electronic benefit cards. “Farmers’ markets have become popular because the food is so fresh,” says Novak. “People love the vendors and every single week someone thanks me for having the market – it’s so important to them.”

JOE WASKIEWICZ (J & J Farms, Amherst):  When Joe Waskiewicz was growing up on Meadow Street in Amherst in the 1930s, every household on the street farmed the land. Today, Joe’s farm is one of just two that remain. Joe’s grandfather, Dimitriou, began the farm in 1909. These days, most of the farm work is done by Joe’s sons, Mike and Butch (Joe Jr.), though Joe can still usually be reached in the barn during chore time. The farm grows top quality sweet corn and other vegetables; equally important is its dairy operation, the only one remaining in Amherst today. The farm sells to wholesalers and retail stands, and they have their own farm stand by the road. J & J Farms has a reputation for diligence, quality, and innovation, and were early supporters of integrated pest management.  Reflecting on his farm’s celebration of its 100th anniversary last year, Joe commented that it’s hard to imagine another period in history when farming changed so much — there have been great improvements in the variety of seeds available, as well as crop yields, and mechanization has made farming much more efficient. At the same time, he recognizes that farmers face new challenges and expresses pride that he was able to see the family farm over the century mark.  J & J Farms cultivates their own eighty acres, and rents an additional eighty from neighbors. “It’s important to keep the land productive,” says Joe, “I think it will be essential to food production in the future.”

Dan Rosenberg DAN ROSENBERG (Real Pickles, Greenfield):  How does a 24-year old from northern New Jersey get into the business of making pickles? For Dan Rosenberg, it started with his interests in social change, ecology, and the food system, and his experience on an organic farm. A workshop at a farming conference inspired Rosenberg to try lactic acid fermentation, which is considered the original pickling method. Rosenberg launched Real Pickles in 2001. “It was another way to put up local food so that the harvest could be enjoyed during the winter, and to make available a traditional food that has kept people healthy for thousands of years,” says Rosenberg.  The company’s products, including dill pickles, sauerkraut, and kimchi, have quickly gained a loyal customer base throughout the region. Real Pickles uses only organic vegetables, which it purchases from seven farms within fifty miles of Greenfield. Last year, Real Pickles purchased and renovated a century-old industrial building in Greenfield to accommodate its growing success.  Rosenberg credits his business success to staying true to his principles: investing in the local food system, promoting minimally-processed healthy foods, and being as ecologically conscious as possible, and is proud that Real Pickles has proven to be economically viable, while finding and filling a niche in the local food structure. The Local Hero Award is given to individuals, institutions and businesses that are committed to promoting and strengthening local agriculture, and have demonstrated long-term vision, social responsibility, and/or an environmental ethic in their work. Past recipients include: John LaSalle/LaSalle Florist in Whately; The People’s Pint in Greenfield; Seeds of Solidarity Farm in Orange; writer/activist Mary McClintock; Amy Klippenstein and Paul Lacinski of Sidehill Farm in Ashfield; Gardening the Community, a youth-centered community-based urban gardening project in Springfield; Cooley Dickinson Hospital; Joe Czajkowski of Czajkowski Farms in Hadley; the Franklin County Community Development Corporation; Nuestras Raíces in Holyoke; Doug Coldwell and Dewitt Thomson of Full Bloom Market Garden; Dan Kaplan from Brookfield Farm in Amherst; and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

To learn more about CISA and become a member click here or call (413) 665-7100.

Goldthread Herb Farm

William Siff, co-founder of Goldthread Herbal Apothecary

“I have a good imagination,” William Siff told me as we sat in the shade overlooking the new Learning Garden in the midst of fields of medicinal herbs. He said he didn’t imagine the Goldthread Herbal Apothecary with its farm, workshops and national speaking engagements all at once, “But they are all a part of the same focus.

“As a move towards sustainable living herbal medicine is a powerful vehicle. As a society we know a lot about complex things, but we’ve lost knowledge of simple things, like providing health care without running to the doctor or to the drugstore. Herbs can provide one element of our self sufficiency and they can have an enormous ripple effect,” he said.

Certainly the ripple effect is evident in Siff’s life. Trained as an herbalist and acupuncturist, he and his wife Sarah founded Goldthread Herbal Apothecary in Florence seven years ago, then bought a house and land in Conway to grow organic medicinal herbs for the shop.

“When we started growing herbs we just jumped in. Friends and family helped us in the beginning. In exchange we taught them about herbs and health. As that teaching became more popular we developed the Farm to Pharmacy program. Last year we ran it for the first time as a formal entity with a detailed seven month curriculum.  We look at herbs from various perspectives. As grower we look at propagation, cultivation and harvest with some hands on processing experience, but also from the botanical perspective and from the clinical perspective.  We charge tuition for this program,” Siff explained.

Goldenseal in the shade

A tour of the farm includes fields of 150 to 160 herb species. Some, like goldenseal and American ginseng grow in shade, but most others grow in sun. On the day I visited the garlic was about to send out graceful scapes that can be used in cooking, hop vines were artfully arranged on supports and Siff was setting out rosemary plants. “One hundred and fifty in, and another hundred and fifty to go,” he said with a smile. “We treat rosemary as an annual and will harvest every plant in the fall.”

Goldthread Farm Learning Garden

Rosemary and every other herb that Siff grows will be represented by at least a single sample in the handsome large circular Learning Garden that is on the site of a huge dairy barn. The barn was taken down by hand in the fall of 2008 so that the wood could be reused.  Stones from the foundation now take their place as the bones of  the garden.

The rosemary field, like the others, makes use of raised beds. “We use raised beds because it is easier on the back. They are permanent, but we primp them each year – after harvest they are reshaped and reformed. It means lots of work up front, but less work over time.”

Sarah Siff who was active in the business when they began is now concentrating on their two young children, and on earning a Masters degree in education.

Goldthread classroom/herb drying loft/distillery

After taking an intensive herbal workshop Thomas Schieffer stayed on to be Siff’s ‘right hand man’ putting his engineering and construction skills to good use. The derelict garage is now attractive and energy efficient, housing a classroom, a drying loft for herbs and a distillery. Schieffer redesigned the base of the wood fired distillery and noted that “when you’re around fire, it’s fun. This is just another element that makes the whole process more intimate.”

The business in the shop and on the farm now uses five other employees.

Siff hopes Goldthread Herb Farm will be a model for others. To that end he speaks at national conferences, and has instituted three one week intensive workshops, in June, July and August, that focus on fundamentals. The goal is for attendees to take the ideas and information away with them to use in a variety of ways, for their own health care, in the operation of school gardens, or to grow marketable crops.

Siff is currently working on building a consortium of organic herb growers. He is contracting with Conway’s Natural Roots CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Mountain View Farm CSA in Easthampton, and Nuestras Raices in Holyoke to grow organic herbs for them so they will have a larger local supply.

When I asked him if herbs helped give him energy for all these projects he hesitated. He said he used lots of herbs, but then mentioned ashwaganda withania somnifera which “gives a healthy dose of energy, but keeps you relaxed.”

If you visit the farm, maybe you will see it and learn more about becoming energetic but relaxed yourself.

The Goldthread Farm (www.goldthreadapothecary.com)  is just one of the five unique farms and six private gardens that are on The Franklin Land Trust’s 22^nd Annual Farm and Garden Tour scheduled for June 26 and 27 between 10 am and 4 pm.

Tickets are limited, please e-mail or call to reserve: lalvord@franklinlandtrust.org or 413-625-9151. Tickets are also available from the World Eye Bookshop in Greenfield, and any remaining tickets may be purchased at the registration tent located at the Greenfield Savings Bank branch on Rte 116 in Conway the weekend of the event, which will be open 9:30-4:00 each day. Tickets are $20 for non-members, $15 for members. A pre-paid lunch at the Holly Barn in Conway is also available for $15.

***************

The Franklin Land Trust Farm and Garden tour will show you the beauties of our landscape.  Together on the Land: Options for Ecological Living in Community is a tour co-sponsored by the Cooperative Development Institute, Equity Trust, Franklin Land Trust, Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust & Valley Community Land Trust scheduled for Saturday, June 12 from 9 to 5. Do you know the difference between a coop, condo, and cohousing? Logon to www.vclt.org for full tour information. Maybe you will find a new way to get your dream home.  ####

Between the Rows    June 5, 2010

.

Thirty Years Between the Rows

How has your garden changed in 30 years?  How has your life changed in 30 years?

As a person who moved every two or three years (on average) for the first four sevenths of my life, I was stunned to realize that Henry and I have been in Heath for 30 years! And that means, that on May 22, today, I celebrate my 30^th anniversary as garden columnist for The Recorder.

It was a happy day for me when Bob Dolan hired me to write a local garden column for the new Leisure tabloid section that The Recorder planned. The garden season was beginning and so was my first Heath garden.  My plan that first spring was to put in a huge vegetable garden. We got one of our new neighbors to come and plow up a big section. I don’t remember the measurements, but it was more than we were able to plant. Do you think I have learned to make my garden a manageable size?  Not really. Which means I sympathize with everyone who has big plans and little time.

Gardens inevitably change over time. Gardeners become more skilled. They develop new interests. They find new mentors. They meet other gardeners who give them plants they never dreamed of growing.

Guan Yin Mian tree peony

Sometimes travel changes the way a gardener approaches the garden. My first mentor was Elsa Bakalar with her British perennial borders. I accompanied her and a busload of enthusiastic gardeners on a tour of England gardens in 1983 and was entranced with perennials, and ‘garden rooms.’  I started my own perennial border. but realized that it takes special artistic skills (and time or hired labor) to have fantastic borders like those at the stately homes of Britain.

Queen Elizabeth grandiflora

Then Henry and I went to China where the gardens use a limited palette of plants, and very few of those at a time. In China the word for gardens, shan shui, means mountains and water.  And ‘mountains’ in the garden often take the form of stones.  When we returned from China, British borders began to look crowded and busy. My view of what was attractive was enlarged.

There are many climates, many landscapes, many types of gardens, many types of beauty, and each of us gets to discover our own preferences. Some know right away what kind of garden they want, and make up a master plan (with or without professional help) and proceed to implement that plan with little revision.

Others, like me, work on one project like The Rose Walk and then decide how to fit the next project in and around what already exists.  I’ve often thought that if I knew what I liked and knew what I was doing 30 years ago, my gardens would be very different.

I named this column Between the Rows because our neighbor in Maine, Mr. Leslie, who had a great garden (and a wooden gas lawn mower that he contrived), said he was always ready to stop between the rows and swap a few lies.  He knew that gardeners have as many tales as fishermen in their repertoire.

I hoped that this column would allow me to swap stories and information with other gardeners and talking to gardeners has been the main delight of this column I have seen beautiful and amazing gardens, small and large, and met the most fascinating, enthusiastic and knowledgeable people who are willing to share their knowledge – and their plants. Recently I have also been asked to take photographs to go along with my columns, so I’ve had a new learning curve.

Hoki tree peony on Bridge of Flowers

I’ve always known that gardeners are among the most generous of people, always happy to share a plant, or seeds, or a tip about how they do things. What has surprised me is how gardeners band together to provide service and beauty to their communities.  The Greenfield Garden Club supports educational horticultural projects in the schools, and beautiful plantings throughout the town. The Bridge of Flowers committee oversees the upkeep of the Bridge which gives so much pleasure to us locals who work or run errands in Shelburne Falls, but it also attracts over 34,000 tourists – and those are just the ones who sign the guest book.

Gardeners singly and in groups are aware of the economic pressures on many families, making monetary donations to the various food pantries in the county, but also by Planting a Row for the Hungry and donating extra produce to local organizations.

Greeenfield Farmers Market

Since my first passion was organic vegetables I have been so happy to see the growing appreciation for fresh local vegetables and fruits – and the concurrent rise of small farms, farm stands, farmer’s markets and Community Supported Agriculture farms – CSAs.

As I’ve written about gardens and gardeners, I’ve learned about farms and farmers. I’ve learned about threats to our environment and the ways that we can all protect our precious soil, water and air.

People often ask me how I find something to say every week. I’ve learned that the more I write, the more gardeners, farmers, and issues I find to write about. I can only hope The Recorder will give me another 30 years to get through my list of people and topics.

Grandsons with good Heath Blueberries

Between the Rows  May 22, 2010

Buzzin’ of the Bees

The bumbleebees are buzzin’ in the wisteria blossoms, and all kinds of bugs are biting me around my eyes, behind my ears and in the middle of my back where I can swat or scratch. It got so bad that in the heat of the day yesterday, I retired to the house for iced tea and a dip into Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles (Knopf $29.95).

I was entranced the first time I picked up this book and began at A  for Air. In 1926 a little monoplane took off from Tallulah, Louisiana to collect insects from the high altitudes. That was the first attempt to use an airplane, but not the last. While statistics tend to put me to sleep this chapter counts the amazing numbers of insects, some as common as ladybugs, at 6000 feet. Some are wingless, but carried by air currents. At 15,ooo feet a ballooning spider was found.  ”Think of 26 million little animals flying unseen above one square mile of countryside. . . . a vault of insect laden air.”

But that is just an introduction to the insect world, which for Raffles in an introduction to many other facinating topics and a spur to his own thoughts and point of view as an anthropologist. He is interested in how humans interact with all manner of animals, including insects.

The twenty-six chapters or essays range between 2 to 44 pages, and cover insects from a variety of perspectives. In Chernobyl he writes about Cornelia Hesse-Honeggers painting of mutations in insects caused by radiation; in Fever/Dream he writes about malaria and his own attack; and in The Sound of Global Warming he writes about pinon engraver beetles.  Chapter headings like The Ineffable, Temptation and Zen and the Art of ZZZ’s take us to unexpected and fascinating places.  When the grandsons visit this summer I’ll be full of weird and wonderful facts. They love weird and wonderful things.

Raffles has said that writing this book as an ‘encyclopedia’ is bit of a joke, making fun of the idea that you can gather all the information about anything and put it in one place. But he is an anthropologist, not an entomologist, so he comes at insects in myriad ways, with references to artists, philosophers, novelists and the ways they approach the world, not only insects. The book (well footnoted if you are interested) ends with this: “Learn to live with imperfection. We’re all in this together. The miniscule, a narrow gate, opens up an entire world.

I am still going to put on insect repellent when I go out in the garden today.

Emily Dickinson at the NYBG

A little Madness in the Spring

Is wholesome even for the King,

But God be with the Clown–

Who ponders this tremendous scene–

This whole Experiment in Green–

As if it were his own!

Emily Dickinson

Spring madness was in the air when I trekked to the New York Botanical Garden for the special exhibit Emily Dickinson’s Garden: Poetry in Flowers. Two rooms of the stunning Enid E. Haupt Conservatory were given over to interpretations of the gardens and Dickinson’s home, The Homestead, in Amherst.

While many of us have a vision of a slight, white clad woman quietly writing odd verses in her bedroom, seeing no one, Emily Dickinson’s early years were quite ordinary. She did not become reclusive until she was in her thirties. Her father was a prominent citizen of the town who served as treasurer of Amherst College for decades, as well as a state legislator and as a member of the U.S. Congress. The household was busy and engaged in the social life of the town.

Born in 1830 Emily, and her sister Lavinia, attended school at the Amherst Academy, and later attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Throughout her girlhood she suffered from health problems, and it was poor health that ended her attendance at Mount Holyoke after only a year.

In spite of her poor health, the family deaths that occurred while she was young, and the view of the Amherst cemetery from the Homestead’s windows, her life was not drenched in sorrow. Emily grew up in a busy family, in a handsome pale yellow house, amid flower and vegetable gardens and once declared, “I was reared in a garden, you know.”

In fact she studied botany, and when she was only 11 she began putting together an herbarium that ultimately included 400 plants, each labeled and identified with its proper Latin name. A beautiful facsimile of this herbarium was created and published by Belknap Press of Harvard University; the original resides in Harvard’s Houghton Library.

Dickinson gardened all her life, caring for roses, lilacs, tulips, zinnias, foxgloves, sweet Williams and poppies as well as all the bulbs that bloom in the spring. When the family was prosperous enough a small conservatory (now gone) was added to the house. Plantings there included a fig tree and other tender and exotic plants.

All these and more are included in the lush plantings in the Conservatory. I was particularly taken with the recreation of the well traveled path between The Homestead and The Evergreens, the house her brother Austin built for his family next door. Of course the Conservatory staff has the skill to bring flowers from a whole season into bloom at the same time, peonies with roses, delphiniums with foxgloves, columbine with morning glories.

Set among the plantings are little placards with appropriate poems including all the creatures that visit the garden including birds, and bees. Only 18 of Dickinson’s poems were published during her lifetime. It is only after her death that her sister found the little booklets in a drawer – the more than 1700 poems her sister had written and organized.

One of the poems set among the flowers shows a more positive feeling about fame than I ever imagined she possessed.

“Fame is a bee.

It has a song –

It has a sting –

Ah, too, it has a wing.

That poem strikes me as wistful, a peek at Dickinson imagining a different world for herself if she had found fame. Yet another poem with its black cawing crow presents a very different picture of fame and its consequences.

“Fame is a fickle food

Upon a a shifting plate

Whose table once a

Guest but not

The second time is set

Whose crumbs the crows inspect

And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the

Farmer’s corn

Men eat of it and die.”

Fame did come to Emily Dickinson, but not until many years after her death in 1886.  She is now considered a major American poet. The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. By R.W. Franklin have been published by the Belknap  Press of Harvard. The exhibit in the Conservatory gives an idea of the joys and inspiration Dickinson found in the garden.

Nearby the Conservatory is a Poetry Walk with 30 Poetry Boards featuring some of Dickinson’s poems about flowers and the garden.

Dickinson's garden included vegetables

A further exhibit is on display in the NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library Gallery will showcase items reveal the context of her life. It should be noted that Jane Wald, Executive Director of the Emily Dickinson Museum is a key member of the Curatorial Team that put this exhibit together.

The exhibit will continue at the NYBG until June 13. On Saturday, June 12 from 10am to 6 pm visitors are invited to read their own favorite Dickinson poems aloud, and on Sunday, Judith Farr, author of  The Gardens of Emily Dickinson will give a talk about Dickinson’s Eden” at 4 pm.

Even if you can’t nip down to the exhibit, we have the Emily Dickinson Museum in our own backyard, and there is a whole raft of beautiful and fascinating books about Emily, her garden, and an imagined life in the novel I Never Came to You in White, also by Judith Farr.

*************************

One place to spruce up our own individual Edens, is the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale next Saturday, May 22, from 9 am to noon at the Green at the corner of Main and Water   Streets. In addition to a wonderful selection of perennials, and annuals, the following vendors will be on hand: Nancy Dole Books; OESCO, Michael Naldrett’s photo notecards; Steve Earp’s pottery; and John Sendelbach’s garden art.

Between the Rows   May 16, 2010

Gloriosky Gloria!

Gloria Pacosa and me

Yesterday my husband,  Henry,  and I went out to The Curtis House in Ashfield to film a session with Gloria Pacosa of Gloriosa & Co. and Trillium Workshops fame for the Shelburne Falls Cable TV show Over The Falls. The subject was how to make beautiful container plantings. Mine is the red arrangement and Gloria’s is one of fifteen herbal containers that she is making for a wedding next weekend. The show will be aired first on May 14.

We talked about everything beginning with what kinds of containers are available. Clay pots, plain and fancy are classic, but they do dry out quickly and special attention needs to be paid to watering. Plastic, resin and new fangled materials sometimes mimic ornate stone containers at moderate prices. They also dry out at a slower rate but all container plantings must be watered every day.  Gloria, the Queen of Recycling, is always looking for throwaways to use from pretty china teacups for muscari, to rusty old egg baskets like this one that she lined with moss, harvested from her lawn and the woods, inserted a plastic bag to hold potting soil and then filled with a great selection of plants combining silvery and red foliage.

There are many recipes for potting mixes online. I usually buy a commercial mix, but I always add a helping of compost. In addition to being kept well watered, containers must be kept fertilized. Fish emulsion is good, and Gloria said I could put all the comfrey in my backyard to good use by chopping it up and letting it steep in a pail or barrel of water for a few days. I have LOTS of comfrey. Comfrey tea is very nutritious and good for plants.

My own container began with a bright red dahlia. Then Gloria helped me choose other plants to go with it. Basil and a variegated sage added light bright green foliage, red salvia was a good compliment to the dahlia and then came what I thought was a bold move, the coral dascia.  Wow! I would never have been able to do this myself, but Gloria has given me new confidence – just what every good teacher does.  I also took hydrated moss from Gloria’s collection and ‘mulched’ the top of the container. This gives the arrangement an elegant finished look.  To keep the container looking its best all summer I will have to keep the plants deadheaded. They will grow taller and will fade. Cut them back!  Gloria was quite insistent. Shear the dascia! To get more dahlias keep deadheading.

I can’t put this outside yet because it is too cold, but in a couple of weeks it should be safe. It will be really happy on my very sunny piazza.  In the meantime it is is our bright, unheated Great Room.

Shopping with Le Flaneur

The weather is wretched here today. No need to pretend, and I go window shopping with Le Flaneur.

Pretend the weather is impossible and while away some time perusing these sites – no need to buy a thing, but it’s always beneficial to have a notion of just where you might find something when the need arises:

Seibert-Rice offers a vast and expensive array of pots. What appeals is the robustness and visual strength of their designs. Pot rims are hefty, voluptuous and molded in ways reminiscent of architectural cornices. The various designs possess a boldness of expression that transports them beyond the realm of “pretty” or “decorative” in the pejorative sense. They offer both new and antique pots, this antique olive oil jar – now a vase – is from Castello di Uzzano, Greve-in-Chianti (circa 1863). Now this is a cachepot with cachet – a pot with pedigree. I find myself wondering about the gigantic man-made hill in Rome, now off limits to visitors (and collectors), created millennia ago from millions and millions of discarded wine and oil amphorae and now waiting – the garden container mother lode.

One site, operating a dwarf Google (the search engine, not a plant) is Garden Gate It’s a terrific place to begin a search for the perfect antique urn, planter or garden device.

One of many basic and reasonable sources for planters in metal, terra cotta and resin/fiberglass, one web site, PlantContainers.com,strikes me as fairly-priced and broad in their selection, but the offerings are such that you might be lucky and find something at your local big box hardware and home store – saving time and shipping costs. My luck with Home Depot, however, has been dismal. Because of the seasonal aspect I invariably am too late to find that perfect pot in the size I need. Planters I’ve bought there have been purchased as compromises – never the happiest of solutions. On the other hand I was spectacularly fortunate to find a half-dozen large, tall terracotta pots at IKEA that have served brilliantly on stone steps, their vertical lines contrasting with the horizontal lines of a small mid-century modern house. That the pots have acquired a patina of moss (or perhaps it’s just slime) and substantial efflorescence that add to their appeal. This site covers the fundamentals in terms of its offering of shapes, sizes and materials.

Whichford Pottery [http://www.whichfordpottery.com/index.asp carry a full range of terracotta garden containers, with an emphasis on traditional forms suitable in size and shape for almost any need. Their categories include basket flowerpots, large-and-lavish, pots of substance, the kitchen garden, the ornamental garden, truly tradition, ideal for every gardener and making the most of smaller gardens. Their offerings are indeed lovely.

Guy Wolff full pots

America’s botanical gardens can always use support, so one might wish to select containers offered by the New York Botanical Garden. Their pots are gently flared, and aged with a pleasing patina. The NYBG carry Guy Wolff pottery as well as a large selection of equally handsome pots (many with the patina of history) reflecting a more Italian of at least sunnier disposition.:

Whether one selects from these ranges or not, it is well worth spending some time contemplating the proportions and the elegant understatement. After all, the point is not to collect pots (well, perhaps it is) but to provide a setting for one’s plants and flowers. And here it should be pointed out that an ever-useful analogy might be the relationship or balance between a diamond and its setting. One should never be confused about which is which, and rest assured, when a newly engaged beauty shows you her ring, she is not expecting you to focus upon its setting.

Finally, there are those two bookend bastions of contemporary cost-conscious consumption, IKEA and Costco. IKEA offers an ever-changing selection of containers, and with imagination a number of their products can be transformed into plant containers, too. Costco, online, also offers planters and their prices include shipping.

Urn Cache – in your spare time!

With Pat’s assistance, I’ll be posting from time to time briefer items dedicated to a single intriguing pot/jar/container find. In the meantime, one last suggestion for those fortunate enough to live in the West County (Massachusetts): Shelburne Farm & Garden (413-625-6650), 355 Mohawk Trail, Shelburne Falls, MA 01370. For years I’ve happily bought pots from proprietor Pat Schmidt’s large and pleasing selection. The bonus, of course, is that she also carries a vast array of everything to put in those pots, beginning with topsoil and ending with attractive plants that have proven idiot-proof.

-Flaneur du Pays

More About Containers

The Flaneur du Pays continues his disquision on Containers.

Belgian pots from NYBG.org

Materials

Pots and containers are available in all the materials that a sculptor might employ: woods, metals (zinc seems to be the current favorite), clay, and recently fiberglass and synthetic resins. The natural materials remain the most aesthetically pleasing, but utility, lightness of weight and weather-durability all have their virtues as well and this is why the newer materials must be considered. These materials have, like the plants they’ll hold, a lifespan and a limit. Wood ages and rots, metal corrodes, terracotta cracks with frost and resins suffer solar damage. One can deplore this lack of immortality or face reality and embrace the patina. Face it: we’re all developing a patina, no?

Shapes – and Uses

Now that we’ve agreed we’re patinated, let’s also agree that we reflect an abundance of shapes and sizes. Containers for the garden are an equally diverse population and all have their uses. In plan, pots tend to be either round or square with variations (ovals, ellipses, rectangles and rhombuses represented). Planter heights are offered in infinite variety, and one may favor lower, broad containers to emphasize horizontal lines, or taller pots to underscore the vertical.

Chez Flaneur

Tall pots can, in pairs, define an entry or even act much as bollards and prevent unwanted circulation – such as keeping automobiles at bay and away from pedestrians. Lower, larger containers can provide color and texture without obscuring the view of someone who is seated. We’ve all seen the rectangular boxed planters that separate the pedestrians’ portion of the sidewalk from the café patron’s table. The (usually wood or metal) planters may themselves be pedestrian, but with something green flourishing, they become attractive and useful. Urns of flowering plants placed at the bottom (or top) of a stairway, a drive or a walkway emphasize the intended pathway and enhance the experience of making the transition between spaces.

A line of planters can define an edge, and act as a visual warning  – no there isn’t a railing but there is a retaining wall ahead. Round or square, tall or… not, pots can be had with or without drainage holes (and most purveyors will drill holes for customers – with the proviso that the item is non-returnable). More specialized containers include the “strawberry” pot, with multiple “pockets” on its side(s), suitable for cacti, Alpine plants and… strawberries.

By far the greatest virtue of a plant container is that it allows the plant to be brought indoors when outdoor conditions threaten. At the Boboli gardens in Florence, the scores of giant terracotta pots, each holding a lemon tree, are moved in and out with the seasons. One immediately thinks of wealthy fin de siècle sanitarium or spa patients being wheeled out onto a terrace to convalesce and take the sun. I assure you I have always felt as if my years of caring for agapanthus (which are now blessedly back out on the terrace) have been like years of caring for aging relatives: feeding them broth and wheeling them about in Bath chairs. Were they not in containers they’d be long dead. The agapanthus, I mean.

You know best the needs of whatever you’ll be placing in a container. You’d be foolish to seek my advice except to heed these admonitions:

Les Jardins du Roi Soleil

• To paraphrase English Arts and Crafts Movement founder William Morris, possess only those planters you know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

• Less is more – both in design or decoration and in price. Quite often a discount store will have just the thing for a price that allows you to invest in more important garden assets. Recycled objects can be brilliantly employed as containers. For every bathtub inverted to shelter the Virgin, washing machine placed to receive geraniums or tractor tire employed to hold marigolds there have been handsome objects repurposed to splendid effect as plant containers. You’re a gardener for goodness sake: you have imagination!

• Exercise restraint: after all it is a garden and plant materials installed as God intended should not be overwhelmed by planters, containers and plant-holding “furniture”. Quite possibly you’re the determined and capable gardener who can handle and manage plants in beds and plots. So you have no need for containers.
  

  Flora Danica

• If you’re one of the many who have no garden at all – the apartment dweller, perhaps – but still have an urge to have a containerized plant, may I suggest the eternal and utile cachepot? Should you opt for the Flora Danica cachepot and go for a 200-year old, antique specimen, I assure you that you’ll be well on your way to financial ruin – just like a real gardener!

Ikea saucer

If you cannot use your container for planting, fill it with water – birds must bathe. Install a pump and you’ll be steps closer to the basins and fountains of Versailles.